In the latest edition of British Archaeology (digital subscriprion, get me eh) there's a feature on Rock Art and the findings from recent excavations at a couple of sites in Scotland. Part of the feature concerns quartz stones found near the panels, which are thought to have been used to create the motifs.

Something that surprised me was learning that experiments using similar quartz stones found that it took between only half an hour and an hour and a half to create simple motifs.

Given this relatively short amount of time (relative to, say, hauling a rock 5 miles and standing it upright) I would have thought we might expect to see much more elaborate and physically larger designs on rock panels.
This leads me to think the motifs were kept deliberately 'minimal', as if people were developing the most efficient way of communicating information, important information which needed to remain visible, but with the least possible effort.

I haven't read much concerning theories for British rock art and I was wondering if any work has been carried out to construct a 'language' of sorts from the motifs, perhaps attempting to correlate recurring motifs with recurring features in the landscape, sources of water etc and if so have there been any particular ideas which seem to fit?
Is there any reason to think the motifs were created to impart information to others?

At lot of regions [ maybe all ] where there's rock art is water that's got a lot of metal in it [ water at places like Ilkley and Kilmartin have high iron contents ] and would have been poisonous over quite a short time, so finding good clean water in these places if you didn't know the region would have been a matter of live and death, the places that have mainly clean water don't seem to have rock art, one thing i think they show is where the clean water is in an area, i discovered this by realising that the tree of life stone in yorkshire was a map of the landscape you could see from it, i then looked at the map and realised that the cups with rings were matched up with the springs [ flowing clean water ] and the lines linking the cups matched the water lines [ and the flow of the water ] in the valleys between the hills and cups without rings with still water, i think the way in is seeing cups with rings as moving water [ thats why it looks like a stone been thrown into water- as it signifies moving water and the lines between cups is where that water goes and cups without rings as still water [ never the best to drink, even without the metal content ], and i've got a feeling [ because of the slope of a lot of rock art panals ] that if you put water or a liquid on it in a certain place they may even show how the water moves though that area, if so it's fucking genius, i could use the tree of life to find clean water even now, i think this proves something.

You have come up with a lot of interesting theories bladup that you should put into print before someone else does if you feel confident enough. Some will be proven correct others not so but prehistory is like that and you have to take the rough with the smooth. You never seem afraid to state your case so good on you for having the balls to do it.

Thanks a lot, these places would have had dangerous water [to much iron can kill in weeks- fact], therefore knowing where the only safe and clean water was would have been massively important, clean and safe for them was moving water [ eg springs ], and these people who seem so interested in cup and rings don't seem to like someone saying that over years and years [13] i've learned about 1 aspect of them and i can actually use [ if the landscape is still natural ] them in that respect [ i never said i knew EVERYTHING about them just one aspect ], i must be on to something to create the utter bollocks that was written in response to my theory, and you know i can take the rough with the smooth [ like you do ] because i don't care [ beyond my family ] what other people think, these people think they are experts because they are so interested in this stuff, it makes them think they know, but have no answers at all, there isn't even a "go on explain more", you would think because their so interested in them they might want to know more, even if that is to then take the piss, instead it's just a piss take dismissal, it's really easy to not care what know it all's, know nothing sort of people think, what i like about you is your truly open mind, and there's not many of them about around here, i'm afraid.

You have completely avoided all the points raised against your suggestions , I'll list them on the next post if you like .Note , that rather than moan and say your suggestion was a narrow minded load of bollocks I explained why it was .
There was a cue to "go on explain more" , simply post a pic of the map or point out on the various maps available on the web where the springs or streams on the map mirror those on the stone .